[pct-l] Re-introduction

[atjulliard at yahoo.com (Alan Julliard)]

Hello!

  I was originally on this list in 1996.  You can read
my  introduction at
http://www.backcountry.net/arch/pct/9612/msg00044.html
in the archives.  I hiked the PCT Mexico to Canada in
1975.  I just turned 50 a few weeks ago and that same
week was hiking on the PCT near Mt. Hood.  I realized
that although I have hiked a few times on the trail in
those 29 years (including carrying my baby son across
Tuolumne Meadows in 1984), I have never backpacked it
since.  So next year the plan is to celebrate my 30
years by returning to Campo for the start of a
multiyear section hike.  I might even try to make it
to ADZPCT thing.  For now, I am just skimming the list
for recent developments in gear, etc.
  Here is a story, not exactly trail magic, or maybe
it is.  I flew to Phoenix from Ohio with a friend and
we caught a Greyhound bus and were dropped along I-10
that night about 10 miles north of Campo.  We headed
out into the dark desert and camped off the road.  We
awoke in the middle of the night to snow which by
morning accummulated to less than an inch; it was a
sign from the gods, we joked, and it turned out that
was exactly what it was, as we would find out a month
later.  We started hitchhiking into Campo and who
should pick us up but a Border Patrol agent.  He
shared all sorts of stories with us then left us in
town with this tip: that Mexico was actually beyond
the fence about 100 yards and it was "OK...wink,wink"
for us to slip through the fence in order to touch
Mexican soil.  In the first edition guidebook that I
was carrying is a picture of the remains of a building
just on the Mexico side of the fence and so we went to
the remains (and a little beyond just to be sure) and
took our picture there.  For the rest of the trip,
everytime I met a new thruhiker, I would ask them
where they started, and they would, of course, all say
"Mexico" to which I always replied "No, you didn't"
and would explain it to them.  Thus it was that I was
the only person to truly walk from Mexico to Canada
that year!  ;-)

Alan Julliard

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